about

Everyone in the City is assigned a job by the chooserskeeper, catcher, computer. Callie Crawford is a computer. She works with numbers: putting them together, taking them apart. Her work is important, but sometimes she wants more. Jeremy Finn is a dreambender. His job is to adjust people's dreams. He and others like him quietly remove thoughts of music and art to keep the people in the City from becoming too focused on themselves and their own feelings rather than on the world. They need to keep the world safe from another Warming. But Jeremy thinks music is beautiful, and when he pops into a dream of Callie singing, he becomes fascinated with her. He begins to wonder if there is more to life than being safe. Defying his community and the role they have established for him, he sets off to find her in the real world. Together, they will challenge their world's expectations. But how far will they go to achieve their own dreams?

Ronald Kidd is the author of ten novels for young readers, including the highly acclaimed Night on Fire and Monkey Town: The Summer of the Scopes Trial. His novels of adventure, comedy, and mystery have received the Children's Choice Award, an Edgar Award nomination, and honors from the American Library Association, the International R...

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Reviews

Rated 3 out of
5 by
Barbra_Hesson from
Do dreams affect your everyday existance?After surviving the Warming humans are taking another look at how to avoid another world catastrophe. Unfortunately that means removing things that make human existence worth living; hope, music, love and dreams. Dream benders enter people’s dreams and stop them from experiencing and maybe following through on violent and destructive actions. When the people from the City and the Between discover what is going on, one dream bender realizes they are ruining peoples lives. This unique look at an apocalyptic world is interesting enough, but the ending seems a little too easy for such a structured society.

Date published: 2016-08-08

Editorial Reviews

"Kidd's spare prose winds around dialogue and description, creating images for readers as vivid as Jeremy's dreams. Short sentences will speed reluctant readers through the text. This read-alike of Lois Lowry's The Giver and Jeanne DuPrau's The City of Ember will make for meaty group discussion." School Library Journal, March 1, 2016